Caryl Phillips - Crossing the River

About the Author

Caryl Phillips was born in St Kitts and now lives in London and New York. Crossing the River was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and his most recent novel, A Distant Shore, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

www.carylphillips.com

ALSO BY CARYL PHILLIPS

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Epub ISBN: 9781409016946

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Published by Vintage 2006

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Copyright Caryl Phillips 1993

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First published in Great Britain in 1993 by Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd

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For those who crossed the river

Acknowledgements

I have employed many sources in the preparation of this novel, but would like to express my particular obligation to John Newtons eighteenth-century Journal of a Slave Trader, which furnished me with invaluable research material for Part III.

CONTENTS

A desperate foolishness. The crops failed. I sold my children. I remember. I led them (two boys and a girl) along weary paths, until we reached the place where the mud flats are populated with crabs and gulls. Returned across the bar with the yawl, and prayed a while in the factory chapel. I watched as they huddled together and stared up at the fort, above which flew a foreign flag. Stood beneath the white-washed walls of the factory, waiting for the yawl to return and carry me back over the bar. In the distance stood the ship into whose keep I would soon condemn them. The man and his company were waiting to once again cross the bar. We watched a while. And then approached. Approached by a quiet fellow. Three children only. I jettisoned them at this point, where the tributary stumbles and swims out in all directions to meet the sea. Bought 2 strong man-boys, and a proud girl. I soiled my hands with cold goods in exchange for their warm flesh. A shameful intercourse. I could feel their eyes upon me. Wondering, why? I turned and journeyed back along the same weary paths. I believe my trade for this voyage has reached its conclusion. And soon after, the chorus of a common memory began to haunt me.

For two hundred and fifty years I have listened to the many-tongued chorus. And occasionally, among the sundry restless voices, I have discovered those of my own children. My Nash. My Martha. My Travis. Their lives fractured. Sinking hopeful roots into difficult soil. For two hundred and fifty years I have longed to tell them: Children, I am your father. I love you. But understand. There are no paths in water. No signposts. There is no return. To a land trampled by the muddy boots of others. To a people encouraged to war among themselves. To a father consumed with guilt. You are beyond. Broken-off, like limbs from a tree. But not lost, for you carry within your bodies the seeds of new trees. Sinking your hopeful roots into difficult soil. And I, who spurned you, can blame only myself for my present misery. For two hundred and fifty years I have waited patiently for the wind to rise on the far bank of the river. For the drum to pound across the water. For the chorus to swell. Only then, if I listen closely, can I rediscover my lost children. A brief, painful communion. A desperate foolishness. The crops failed. I sold my children.

I

THE PAGAN COAST

The news reached him after dinner. A well-liveried domestic entered the drawing-room, bowed and thrust forward a silver tray on top of which sat an envelope. Edward seized the letter and dismissed the servant with an elegant flick of his wrist. He levered himself upright and began to read. It was true. Nash Williams, sent to Liberia under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, having undergone a rigorous program of Christian education, and being of sound moral character, had disappeared from the known world. After seven difficult years in Liberia, in which he had worked with unswerving application to his own and his Gods tasks, in which he had apparently won the respect not only of the African natives, but of the free colored men from America, and of the few whites in the inhospitable clime, after seven long years this former bondsman who had been an inspiration to priests and educators alike was nowhere to be found. The worst was feared.

Nash Williams was a teacher of remarkable gifts. He was a man who, in a country in which fewer than two hundred heathens had been converted in almost twenty years, could lay claim to being responsible for at least fifty of the successes that were reported back to America. The reputation of his mission school was legendary, a fact all the more remarkable given the isolated position it occupied near the known head of the St Pauls River. The few letters he had sent back to his master, whilst full of the usual childish requests for tools, seeds, money and other necessities of life, positively bristled with the spirit of faith, courage and purpose. Then, a little under a year ago, and at the same time as a saddened Edward was mourning the loss of his wife, Nash Williams had conveyed, by means of an intermediary, an abrupt message making it plain that he had no desire ever to hear again from his former master, and informing him that his own communications would now cease. A disturbed and worried Edward, judging it best, at this juncture, not to communicate directly with Nash, had word and money sent by means of a packet out of New York that Madison Williams, an older and somewhat haughty former bondsman, should immediately journey from his place of abode in Monrovia and secure news of Nashs whereabouts and, if possible, his general state of health. Madison had, at an earlier time, borne Nash some feelings of ill-will, having reasoned, and to some degree correctly, that his masters affection for himself had been usurped by this younger interloper. But Edward trusted that the passage of time, and a change of climate, would have healed these old wounds, and that Madison would not resent the task with which he was now being entrusted. However, the letter before Edward bore the disturbing news of Madisons expedition. Not only had Madison failed to locate Nash, but he had been blocked at every turn by native intransigence, their crude vulgarity sometimes taking the form of aggression. The details set forth in Madisons sad letter let it be known that he considered himself fortunate to have escaped with his life intact.